Just another night
by Glunkal
Summary: Just another night for Mouri Ran. Oneshot. First fanfic, so please review!


Hey, this is my first fanfic (ever), so I'm a bit anxious (? I'm completely anonymous) to see what other people think about my writing. I can't think of anything else to say, except to ignore grammar errors, and deal with the Japanese style names (backwards like Edogawa Conan), so enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan.

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Mouri Ran was sitting in the chair she had pulled up to the window of the Mouri Detective Agency, staring out at the bright lights of the city. She wasn't really looking at anything, but she did want to feel the cool wind blowing in, hoping it would clear her mind. She leaned on the small windowsill with her elbow, her tired and worried eyes in pain. It was nearing 2 AM, but she still couldn't get to sleep. It wasn't that she wasn't exhausted (her day was actually very tiresome), but her mind just refused to quit working for the night. Her thoughts flipped through her mind, but they all seemed to be on the same topic: Kudo Shinichi. It was slightly over a year since he had suddenly left on a string of cases and, even though Conan's appearance lightened up her life, she desperately wanted to see him again.

_When are you coming home Shinichi?_ her mind asked for what seemed like the millionth time this night. _You always promise to see me, but I only ever get to hear your voice over the telephone. And even when I do see you on rare occasions, it's only for a few minutes. You always leave me wondering Shinichi. Why would you do that? Do you want me to feel lonely every night? Why?_

Ran still stared into space, her mind crying out the tears she had managed to keep controlled until now. She missed Shinichi, and she knew that he felt the same for her. He told her that every time they talked on the phone. _So why,_ she thought to herself, _doesn't he do anything about it? On the phone he is calm and unrushed. He talks like he isn't in any hurry, like he has time on his hands, but then he tells me that he's too busy to visit me. Is he telling me the truth? No one can be that busy, right?_

Ran's gaze grew in complexion as her thoughts intensified. _Does that mean that... that Shinichi has been lying to me?_ The teenager tried to shake her head, as if to shake out her own thoughts, but could only manage to duck her head further down, and close her eyes in obvious pain.

_If Shinichi... if he is lying to me about being busy, then what could he be doing? I can believe that he's been involved in some cases, but not so many that he couldn't stop at his girlfriend's hou... I mean, best friend's house._ On the outside, Ran blushed slightly. But Shinichi hadn't even been on any cases, had he? She had even checked into that a week ago. Well, sort of...

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"What?" Kogoro's irritated voice sounded over the noise of the small TV on his desk. Ran reached over and turned off the TV, looking directly at her father's annoyed expression.

"You heard me," she yelled back, taking the offensive stance she usually took with her father, "I want you to do an investigation on Jimmy Kudo!" Kogoro, at hearing this, abruptly stood up and knocked over his chair in surprise.

"You mean that brat? Why the hell would you want me to look for him?" he exploded at his daughter, eyes full of anger.

"Because," she heatedly responded, "he's been gone for over a year! Isn't that a little long for anybody? I mean, no one around here has even seen the guy, except Dr. Agasa and Conan, and even they don't really know where he goes!" At this point a small boy, who had until then been laying on the couch in the middle of the room, sat up at hearing his name. "And, believe it or not, some people actually like Shinichi! Right, Conan-kun?" Ran ended her argument with a light tone and a nod towards the boy.

"Uh... yeah," Conan responded unsurely, "Shinichi-niichan is really neat. I want to talk to him again!" His boyish grin pleased Ran, and she turned back to her father with a wellareyougoingtoornot look on her face.

"I don't know," Kogoro scratched his chin while he thought out loud, "it really seems like a waste of time to me. And who knows if a real client might show up while I'm out? I'm too busy, and besides," he now added with scorn, "if that kid is so smart, why doesn't he go and find himself?" He grinned at this, but the humor of his 'joke' was lost on the other occupants of the room.

Ran was trying to contain her anger, but she was doing a lousy job at it. Furious at the last remark her father made, she slid her feet into her fighting stance as she crouched forward, poised to strike out at anything close by. Kogoro immediately noticed this and, remembering the last time Ran got in a rage and broke his desk, almost went into a panic. Smiling as large as he could, he waved his hands at her to stop and hurriedly said "Alright! Alright! You win! Just... give me the rest of the day..." As she loosened her body back into a neutral stance, he muttered "And don't break anything while you're at it..."

"Thanks dad!" She said with a smile. "I'm going to go clothes shopping with Sonoko for the rest of the day, so I'll see you later!"

As Ran went to the door, she noticed that both her father and Conan looked rather relieved at her sudden mood swing. But that didn't mean that they still weren't apprehensive. It made her happy to see them like that. It was always nice to know that you could... persuade people into doing things for you. She'd have to thank her father for those Karate lessons someday...

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Night had fallen by the time Ran finally came back. Sonoko took longer than usual to pick out her new outfits, and it didn't help that they accidentally got separated and spent an hour trying to find each other. Finally home, Ran shifted all the bags she was carrying to one hand and opened the door. "Sorry I'm late," she yelled, hoping Conan and her father would hear, "we got a little tied up. I'll start making dinner right away." Looking across the room, she noticed that Kogoro was sitting on the couch, watching the television. She immediately set her bags next to the door, walked into the kitchen and started boiling some water. She was tending to the stovetop, watching over this night's meal slowly form up, when she heard her father say "Well, Ran?"

"Well, what?" she asked back, unsure of what he was asking.

"I thought you would have asked me about Shinichi by now."

_Shinichi?_ Ran thought, _Why would I be asking about Shini... Oh, right. That._ "Well?" She turned away from her incomplete dinner to look at her father straight in the eyes. "Did you find anything out about him?"

Kogoro sighed and diverted his eyes back to the television, not wanting to stare back at his daughter's intense gaze. "Well, not exactly. I decided to start by asking around town to see if people had seen or heard Kudo recently. I went solely to the people who he might interact with the most, and out of all the people I checked I can only bring to mind four who had seen or heard him within the last year: his neighbor Agasa, Conan, Inspector Megure, and you." He ended that sentence with suspicion, as if his own daughter might actually know more than she would care to disclose.

"I didn't get very much from Agasa, just that he was away on a case, and even less came from Megure. Apparently Kudo called a few times to help out with a case that baffled the police. From the lack of information, I decided to call his relatives; after a brief conversation, I learned that, as far as his parents know, he's off somewhere on a few cases or something like that. Another dead end. I finally went to the library and checked the newspaper archives..."

Kogoro paused, as if to add dramatic tension. "He wasn't on a single one."

Ran stared open eyed at him, completely baffled. _That can't be right,_ she thought desperately, _he's always in the newspaper. Every week or two there'd be some case that he'd get the credit for. The media loved him. If he was solving these cases, how could he just not be noticed? He even loves the attention he gets! Is he actually avoiding the press?_ Her voice was laced with doubt as she asked, "But what if he was somewhere else? He wouldn't be in the Tokyo newspapers, would he?"

Kogoro closed his eyes. "I already checked into that. I went onto an online database that kept records of newspapers all across Japan. Any file on there that even mentions Kudo Shinichi is over a year old. In other words," he calmly stated, his voice sounding unusually sharp "this boy simply vanished from everyone one year ago, and hasn't been seen since."

Ran closed her eyes and angrily slammed her hands onto the countertop._ What's going on Shinichi? I thought you were telling me the truth. Is everything you said a lie? Should I even listen to you anymore?_ She bit back the pain she felt, but it would come back to her later. Was Shinichi trying to hide something? He never did things without a reason, so why would he stop now? _No, there must be a reason why he's not telling me what's happening with him. I'll just have to live with that._

_But, still..._

As she opened her eyes, she saw that the door to the hallway was slightly ajar, and hiding behind it was Conan. _Poor kid,_ she thought, _he must've heard dad. I wonder what he's thinking of right now?_ Looking at him from the corner of his eye, she noticed that he was staring into space with a sad and, strangely enough, guilty look on his face. His expression seemed a bit too old for him, which fascinated Ran. _Conan loves to talk about Shinichi; they must be really close. I hope he's ok._ But Ran still couldn't take her eyes off the young boy. There just was something about him...

"Ran?"

Kogoro's voice made Ran remember that she was still in a conversation with her father. "Yes?" She finally sputtered out.

"I don't think you should be cooking that for this long..."

_Dinner? Cooking? What was he talking about?_ And then she remembered. Her eyes shot open as she turned and opened the oven. _Dinner got burnt..._ was all her exhausted mind could think about. She sighed deeply, wondering what else could ruin her day. At least she still had some boiling water. "I hope you're in the mood for instant ramen..." she muttered disappointedly as she reached for the food cabinet. Well, at least there was no way she could screw up on a simple dinner like this, right?

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_Shinichi is out solving cases... Shinichi isn't in the newspapers... Shinichi is out solving cases... _Ran's mind tried to piece the two facts together, but it seemed that they both couldn't be true. _What is he really doing? I trust Shinichi, but I don't know what to think anymore with all that's going on. Let's see... either he's out on cases but keeping the information confidential... or his family thinks he's solving cases but he's doing something else... or he's doing something else and his family's lying or... or..._

_This sort of thing is what Shinichi would do... _Ran thought miserably, unhappy with her mediocre reasoning. _I just wish he'd tell me. I'm tired of waiting, of not knowing what he's doing, or where he is, or... how he feels about me. Please come home soon. I just want you back..._

At this, her mind finally shut down, unable to support the growing emotions behind it. She started quietly sobbing, her body shaking with each breath. She buried her face into her hand, as though she was ashamed of showing herself crying. Now she was audibly crying, and the pain was much worse. She was always trying her best to stay calm, to be happy, but it seemed as though she could never escape in the end.

_Why? Why?_ the question throbbed painfully in her mind. _Why is he gone? Why doesn't he tell me the truth? Why..._ Ran's fraught mind never strayed from Shinichi. She cried even harder, realizing that she couldn't stop thinking about him. She only wanted to see him again, even if only once more... she wanted to be held in Shinichi's arms, and hear his soothing voice melt away her sorrows. _I want..._

Tears fell down her face, but she paid no heed to them. She could only think about her Shinichi.

_Shinichi..._

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So, how was it? I'd appreciate it if you review (I need a second opinion on my writing), and thanks for reading!


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